At the Bottom of the Bottle
by DramaLexy
Summary: A bit of post Hand of God fun. Tiny Kara&Lee undertones because I just couldn't resist but mostly just some hijinks with alcohol.


TITLE: At the Bottom of the Bottle

AUTHOR: DramaLexy

SUMMARY: A bit of post-Hand of God fun. Tiny Kara&Lee undertones (because I just couldn't resist) but mostly just some hijinks with alcohol.

DISCLAIMER: me no own, you no sue

* * *

There was a reason why people weren't supposed to find their way to the bottom of multiple bottles of liquor in one night. 

There were probably several reasons, actually, but that didn't seem to matter at the moment for the group that was seated around a table in Galactica's mess hall. The various and sundry forms of alcohol that had been abundant when Lee had first landed on deck had continued to appear out of the woodwork for the rest of the evening, flask after flask and bottle after bottle. It had been far too long since they'd had something like this to actually be happy about. In the morning, they'd mourn those that had been lost, but tonight, the celebration had spilled from the hangar into the rest of the ship and everyone was enjoying themselves. If Lee hadn't known it before, the scene in front of him was proving it again: Galactica's crew + extreme exhaustion + alcohol made for a very interesting combination.

Somewhere along the line, a card game had, of course, gotten started – there was no doubt in Lee's mind that Kara had been involved in its inception – but as they'd gotten more intoxicated, actually reading the cards had become a bit bigger of a task than most of them could manage. They were now just talking and placing a few random bets upon such things as whom among them could handle walking all the way across the room to get another bottle of ambrosia.

"So, what happened to Ensign Davis?" Sharon was teasingly asking Crashdown. He grinned impishly, taking another swig of his drink.

"The night ain't over yet, Boomer."

"Don't you have a shift tomorrow?" Lee asked him, and then nearly jumped out of his seat when Kara suddenly appeared over his left shoulder, pouring more of some form of home-brewed hard-liquor into his glass.

"You are obviously not drunk enough if you're still worried about shifts," she told her best friend. A smile crossed her face when instead of arguing with her, he knocked the shot back and gestured for another. "Ah, yes, Sir, Captain Apollo, Sir."

"You would not!" suddenly came from the conversation across the table. Boomer was whom the outburst had emanated from, and she was glaring at Crash and Hotdog. Dualla was giggling like mad, and they were apparently amusing Gaeta as well.

"I so dare ya," Hotdog told his fellow pilot.

"Don't even think about it," Sharon warned her ECO. However, Crash just smiled.

"You talk too much," he replied before grabbing her arm and a little container of what passed for salt on Galactica. The fact that Boomer looked away before he licked her wrist only made them all laugh harder.

"Thank you, thank you," Crashdown said once he'd finished with his pilot's arm and emptied his glass, unsteadily getting to his feet and taking a couple of exaggerated bows. "And now, boys and girls, I'm off to the real party." He grabbed a bottle off the table to take with him and headed out to the sound of the wolf-whistles that the guys were giving him.

Kara's face took on a look of surprise once she saw that their CAG had joined in on the jeering. "I was beginning to wonder if the words 'loosen up' were even in your vocabulary," she told Lee, unceremoniously taking a seat upon his lap and pouring them each another shot.

"With all that you've drank, you're still able to think?" Kara grinned.

"Just takes some effort."

"Mmm." They clinked their glasses together before downing the contents. Lee officially hadn't drunk this much since…Now wasn't a time for thinking about 'since'. That would require a few more shots, and he knew he'd had too much already. It was a good thing none of them were on duty before mid-shift the next day at the earliest.

"What are you doing here, by the way?" Kara asked Dualla. "Are they keeping your boy busy on Colonial One?" The younger girl blushed.

"Yeah. I'll get a shuttle over there in the morning. I've got the day off." Boomer raised a glass to her.

"To days off," she toasted. The others chimed in their agreement.

Hotdog pointed to the clock. "You know, it already is morning," he informed Dualla.

She rolled her eyes. "Barely."

"Why is it, Hotdog, that alcohol makes you even more of a smartass?" Kara asked.

He shrugged, grinning. "Don't know, Sir."

"So what exactly would alcohol make you more of?" Lee inquired of Kara. Before he could stop her, she'd used his arm for a salt lick of her own. "Kara, you are so totally trashed," he said. She grinned, shifting position so that she was practically straddling him.

"Yup! And it's been a while, too."

Taking a momentary venture back towards sobriety, Lee was now more aware of her weight on his legs than he had been before. Regardless of who the girl on his lap was, she was still a girl on his lap, and he was still a male human being. He may have been absolutely dead tired, but he'd had quite a lot to drink, and things were probably going to get pretty embarrassing pretty quick if Kara didn't find her own seat.

"Get up, brat," Lee told her, trying to keep his voice steady and his tone light.

"You make a comfortable chair." The fact that she still had a bum leg was the only thing that kept him from dumping her to the floor. However he did have one secret weapon – he knew where she was ticklish. It didn't take much more than a poke before Kara got up. The others were watching them amusedly.

"Ticklish, huh?" Boomer asked her. "What other secrets have you got?"

"Forget it," Kara shot.

"We have drunk way too much to start having show and tell now," Lee told Boomer.

"When you're drunk is the best time," Hotdog replied. "Learned that at the Academy."

"That must be the only thing you learned there," Kara shot back. He just grinned.

"I know we all learned to play 'Haven't Ever' at the Academy," Boomer pointed out. All the officers started snickering. It took reaching the bottom of a few bottles before anyone dared to talk about life on the Colonies without it being in regret or mourning. They hadn't really brought up their good memories since the attack.

"Do I want to know what 'Haven't Ever' is?" Dualla asked.

"Probably not," Lee told her.

"It's just a game," Hotdog cut in. "You say 'I haven't ever' and then finish the sentence. If you've done it, you drink. If you haven't, you don't."

"That wasn't actually coherent," Dualla said with a laugh.

"Okay, here's an example," Kara told her. "I haven't ever brought a fighter back to Galactica's deck without at least one hole in it. You can throw Raptors in there, too," she added for Boomer's sake.

"How kind of you," Sharon replied with a smirk before taking a drink. Gaeta and Dualla obviously did as well; Lee, Kara, and Hotdog did not.

"Speaking of Raptors, I haven't ever flown one," Hotdog threw in. All the other pilots drank.

"I haven't ever worn pink," Dualla contributed.

"Seriously?" Kara asked her.

"Seriously. The color just doesn't do anything for me." Kara shrugged and took a drink, along with Boomer.

"I've never seen you in pink," Lee told his best friend.

"I was a little girl, once, you know."

"Really?"

The whole table broke out laughing when Gaeta drank as well. "We're not going to talk about it," he told them. "I haven't ever…had a one-night-stand." Kara, Hotdog, and Boomer picked up their bottles.

"Do I gotta drink for each one?" Kara asked with a laugh.

"We don't have enough bottles left for that," Lee told her as he picked one up for himself and raised it to his mouth. Kara gawked at him, completely ignoring the dig he'd taken at her.

"When the frak was this?" she asked, referring to the fact that he was taking a drink.

"You never said we had to explain our answers." And he didn't elaborate any further. "I haven't ever…been thrown in hack."

"Looks like I'm going to finish this bottle pretty quick," Kara said as she took a drink. Hotdog did as well.

"Feel like sharing?" he asked Boomer when he noticed her bottle moving.

"Let's just say that skinny-dipping in the Academy pool after hours was definitely frowned upon."

"It was frowned upon at any hour," Kara chimed in. "I know from experience."

"And it definitely makes things a lot worse," Boomer continued, "When your boyfriend's buddies decide to hide your clothes."

"Where was I when this was going on?" Gaeta asked the two pilots. "Because I haven't ever been or seen anyone skinny- dipping."

"Well, that's a broad statement," Hotdog said as he took a drink. Lee, Boomer, Kara, and - to everyone's surprise - Dualla all drank as well.

"Saw or did?" Sharon asked her CAG. He just smiled. "Fine, what about you?" she moved on to Dualla.

"Girls don't swim and tell."

"That's a 'did'," Kara declared with a laugh.

"I think this information oughta get passed along to a certain presidential aide," Hotdog teased Dualla.

She laughed. "We're all blitzed enough that this is barely going to be a memory by the time we wake up in the morning…or afternoon." Everyone laughed.

"I haven't ever been in love," Hotdog stated.

"Never?" Boomer asked him.

"What's the point? You don't need love for sex, and you can't get hurt if you don't care." She shrugged, and took a drink. Dualla, Gaeta, and Lee did as well. Kara took two, which did not go unnoticed by her best friend.

"Flying doesn't count as a second one," he told her. She looked up, surprised.

"It isn't," was all Kara finally said. "I haven't ever…had sex outside."

"Does being in a vehicle count?" Hotdog asked.

"Count as being outside or as not being outside?" she replied.

"Whichever one is gonna get me a drink," he shot back with a grin.

"Ground-transports are inside," Boomer decided. "Airborne ones aren't." With a smile, she took a drink.

"Did it have to be airborne at the time?" Hotdog asked her before taking a swig himself.

"Not necessarily."

"Gods, what were you people doing while you were at the Academy?" Lee asked with a chuckle. The laughter increased when Kara downed a shot of her own. "You just contradicted yourself," he told her.

"They changed the question!"

"Do I want to know who this was with?"

She shook her head. "No, you probably don't."

"Captain Apollo, Sir," Sharon told him. "I believe it's your turn."

"I haven't ever been this toasted before," he said with a laugh. Everyone else, other than Dualla, drank.

"Close, but not quite," she explained with a giggle.

"All right, new question, new question!" Hotdog demanded. A bit of a ruckus started with regards to who was next. It didn't really matter whose turn it was, though; the objective for the night had been met. For these days, it was only at the bottom of the bottle that – just for a little while – they could forget it all.

* * *

FIN. 

see the blue button? you know what to do! 8-)

AN: I know the game's really called 'I Never', but I figured they might have a different name in their solar system. And watching drunk people try to get out that many polysyllabic words would just add to the fun.


End file.
